Impressions: Orcs Must Die

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It is true. They must die. They cannot do anything else, except for make me die. I am, of course, not about to let that happen. Not while I have a fine selection of spike traps, tar traps, arrow traps, crossbows, spears and wind-summoning belts at my disposal. I am so sorry, orcs, but you must indeed die. Don’t try and talk me out of it – I’m in one of those moods. A mood where I want you all to die for my entertainment. No sir, I do not want to talk to this monsters this time.

The demo of Robot Entertainment’s tower defence-as-blood-crazed-third-person-action game landed on Steam last week, and gestures amiably at around four of its 20-strong greenskin-bothering traps across three levels. It should have lasted about 20 minutes, but I managed to sink about two hours into it, wastrel that I am.
The contents don’t sound like much, but I milked that demo for all it was worth – replaying multiple times, unlocking a few upgrades, trying all the difficulty settings and generally getting probably more kicks than the devs would want me too. A demo that offers too much can be bad news – maybe you sate yourself on it and it alone. On the other hand, if you’re really made to like something, you’re that much more likely to buy it.

I’m definitely thirsting for the full game now, though I am worried OMD could suffer from Space Marine syndrome – where the demo showed us almost all the game had to offer and the finished product just seemed like an awkward stretching out of the initial merriment. Still, the sure knowledge of 16 more traps and their assorted upgrades bodes well in that regard.

OMD is unashamedly silly. Its orcs are unashamedly stupid. Its mechanics are unashamedly straightforward. It works like this: orcs rush at you in waves, so you buy traps to slow them down/make them die, and pick off stragglers and survivors with your agreeably deadly melee and ranged weapons. The last bit, revolving around you playing as a battlemage from an over-the-shoulder perspective, sounds obvious but is definitely what ensures this isn’t just a tower defence game.

In fact, it doesn’t feel anything like one even though so many of the component parts are taken directly from the staples of the genre. Because you’re running around in there yourself, constantly shooting, stabbing or using the knockback spell, your mind isn’t in that all-too-familiar state where you’re waiting, biding time and counting cash til the next upgrade. Your mind is on the action, not the maths.

I’m sure later levels require most precise, panicked management, but I tend to glance down at my money, notice I’ve got enough in the bank for another arrow wall trap and it’s lovely surprise. For me, anyway. For the orcs, it’s a really, really horrible surprise.

The sheer, cartoon carnage of OMD is rightly going to prove its biggest selling point. The right configuration of traps will result in an explosion of green (orcs) and red (bits of orcs), while the screen spews congratulations about kill streaks and headshots and earnings and whatever other sadistic glee you’ve managed to activate at you. It’s the same joke over and over, but when that joke is half a dozen orcs suddenly being catapulted a few dozen feet to the left by a clutch of springloaded arrows then exploding in a shower of blood and cash, it’s extremely hard not to enjoy it.

The anaemic Bruce Campbell-lite witticisms of the player character I could do without, however. I like the fact he’s creepily into the genocide he’s enacting on the orcs, but he doesn’t really need to sound like an adrenaline-hooked bellowing goon from a local radio advert for second hand cars. Shut up and build/shoot/stab, man. Still, a minor complaint for an immediately entertaining slice of extreme but light-hearted sadism. That Big, Bad Question doesn’t go away, of course – can this last a full game? I reckon it’s got a pretty good shot at it. And at least, unlike Space Marine, it doesn’t take itself at all seriously.

47 Comments

I guess that the full game should be enough, if only for the jump trap addition. From what I saw in the trailers, you can make quite fun things with those.

The demo levels were fun, because the game feels good in general. Combat is fun, orcs are squishy, it all feels really nice.

It would have been nice if the demo included a level from further on, though, since these early narrow levels can give a wrong idea to people trying it, as it seems too easy, and quite straightforward, not many options about the way to handle situations.

But I guess that a bigger level could have been hitting the “giving too much content” bar.

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Can’t decide whether or not I should buy this or Dungeon Defenders, they seem to be pretty similar though Dungeon Defenders has a multiplayer focus. I bought the Android version of Dungeon Defenders: First Wave back when it was released but the controls are pretty bad (as expected).

Part of it for me is the fact that my wallet isn’t overflowing with money (not that it ever is) due to the fact that just got back from being out of town for 10 days. That and I finally purchased Bastion last night and there are countless other games coming out later this year (Skyrim being my main concern).

I enjoyed the demo too, they only thing which prevented me from purchasing the full game was my current bank balance! I’m sure I’ll get it at some stage. I think a co-op mode to this would be pretty awesome too.

What I’ve seen from it through the interactive trailer and TotalBiscuit’s gander at it makes me think it should be fun enough, although I wonder whether it offers enough variety. Perhaps by adding different areas/terrains (including hazards). That and maybe it’s a bit too frantic for my tastes.

Moreso, I’d like to see some different types of gameplay for variety’s sake in the same style.

Spotlight on Biscuit was one of THE BETRAYER QUINNS’ projects wasn’t it? I have noted its absence before, but it’s only just occurred to me that Quinns’ departure and the column’s disappearance might be linked in some way.

I’ve been playing and reviewing the full game. The later levels become more complex (multiple, wider paths) and the traps and enemies become a little more varied. The difficulty increases as you death with more enemies that can take more paths where you don’t have enough cash to place traps on them all. Typically, I “trap” one or (hopefully) two pathways and guard the others manually with the personal weapons.

The game is repetitive by definition, but if you like the demo, you’ll like the full game. I like how death carries a small penalty and you are given a large amount of freedom where you can place the traps. The key is picking chokepoints where complimentary traps can be used together. The game limits how many traps you can use at a time, which makes you choose which of your arsenal you’ll take into battle before the level starts (and you can’t change it later if you made a bad choice). My personal favorite is still the arrow wall.

It’s not really much like Sanctum. Sanctum is a straightforward TD game in the vein of, say, Defense Grid, but FPS elements.

Orcs Must Die is much closer to a blend of The Horde and the Deception series. They’re third-person defensive action games, as much about shooting and stabbing as building, rather than an RTS-lite with FPS elements shoehorned in.

As someone mentioned above, the creatures in Sanctum lacked soul and the turrets (and only turrets, at least in the first 4/5 levels that I lasted) are just boring. I also couldn’t find any synergies between the turrets (except the slow down turret I suppose), whereas the traps are just MADE to be fused together into explosions of gibs.

On the other hand, in Sanctum you could build your levels. Still, there weren’t really too many viable solutions so it ended up feeling like a chore.

I enjoyed this game’s demo as much as I THOUGHT I was going to enjoy Sanctum’s. The howls of delight emitted by my 8-year old lead me to believe he also thought it was a hoot. I do wonder how Dungeon Defenders will compare, but I think I shall have to pick up Orc Must Die.

It’s a pretty great game – I recently reviewed it and found it very nifty all round. The demo is a couple of tutorial levels – it ramps up a lot in complexity and difficulty, and later levels are a lot longer and larger, too.

24 levels may sound small at first, but there’s a whole second loop. Once you beat Normal mode, you unlock Nightmare, which is a whole second campaign using the same maps, but designed with a skilled player with every trap unlocked from the start in mind.

Have been playing the full game on XBLA (sorry, couldn’t wait, I’m a tower defense addict). It’s a lot of fun. As James Allen said, on later levels you really have to designate one route as “main splatter trap path” and another one as “I’ll cover this hallway.” You simply can’t win just with traps.

Also fun is going back and replaying earlier levels with traps you unlock later.

Also also fun is combining personal weapons/powers with certain traps. For example, in one level, the door the orcs come through is right next to giant pools of acid. Put two rows of tar (slow) traps right in front of the door, wait on one side, and use your blowback power (Belt of Wind) to flick the orcs off the path and into said acid. Good times!

I enjoyed it. It reminded me of Sanctum, which I also enjoyed. But there are differences, as noted above. I sort of miss the weapon upgrades, but I do prefer the traps’ effects, and having my own hit points and magic. Also, I haven’t heard anything about multiplayer for OMD, which could be a lovely addition, were it handled well.

I can’t quite make sense of the combo meter though. Is it a specific type of orc killed in a row? Orcs killed without taking damage? Orcs killed only by weapons or by traps? I haven’t made sense of it.

How the hell did you manage 2 hours out of a demo which is painfully easy???

I like that the demo came out ahead of the game (as demos should) but the choice of levels is shit – there’s NO challenge in there at all and that leaves me wondering if the full game won’t be more a tiresome unlocking experience over a challenge…

Honestly? I got bored of Tower defence games over a decade ago, pretty much before it was a genre now I think about it. Back when you had three cities defending the earth from meteors on the early PC’s or Atari ST’s. I forget the name of the particular game I’m remembering. To be honest, none of the so called modern “inventive” tower defences have actually done anything….well…inventive. A few basic weapons slapped in a doom or quake era shooting engine and/or bog basic dynasty warriors grade melee engine on top of a decades old gameplay model. Woohoo. Frankly, this one was no different.

That said I’m a cantankerous and overly finicky type and I know I can only speak for an overwhelming minority of one. So fair play to all those that like the games and many hours of enjoyment may they bring you.